Hamburger Buddy

Very finely chopping onion, mushrooms and carrots in the food processor is not only fast—it makes the vegetables hard to detect for picky eaters. They also form the base for the sauce of this ground beef skillet supper. Make it a meal: Serve with a green salad.

READER'S COMMENT:

"Total comfort food! I've made this dish several times now. My partner actually requests it!
My modifications were based upon many suggested by other reviewers: Chop and shred your veggies for the texture, splash of red wine added...

I tried to make this dish extra healthy by using ground turkey breast instead of ground beef.I strongly urge you not to try this! It was horrible. It wasn't edible at all. It turned out an orangy mush that lacked flavor. Yuck!

Hated it! Brought it to a pot luck and not sure if people were just being nice, but my husband and I hated it. Would rather have something that tasted more like stroganoff. It's only saving grace is that my one year old seemed to like it - we have been giving her the left-overs.

I made a few tweaks and this came out very well. My two boys and DH loved it. I used the grater attachment on the food processor and grated all the veggies. Also, I replaced the water with stock to boost the flavor. Very good-I am sure this will make it into my regular weeknight rotation.

I gave this 3, not 4, stars for two reasons: it tasted really good, but I had to make a few changes to it. It's not astounding or anything but it's a hearty meal with lots of veggies, fiber, and protein. I can't stand mushrooms but the rest of my family likes them. Instead of "very finely chopping" the onion, mushrooms and carrots, I actually made somewhat of a chunky paste with them: I pureed half of the mixture (this made the dish more watery than it was supposed to be, so I had to add a bit more flour to thicken it up), and finely chopped the other half in the food processor and it came out great. I can't even taste the mushrooms, which was a big bonus, at least for me. I used Fiber Gourmet elbow noodles, which is actually much healthier than whole-wheat pasta and tastes way better. I used 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme, 3/4 teaspoon dried basil, about 1 teaspoon of Penzeys Pizza Seasoning (Weird, I know, but it tastes amazing!) and a little less than 1/4 teaspoon of ground pepper to avoid what other reviews said about this dish ("Too much thyme; bland."). Oh, and I added a rounded teaspoon of freeze-dried chives instead of using fresh chives/parsley as a garnish. Because I have a lot of regular beef broth on hand, I didn't go out and buy reduced-sodium broth. I only used a dash of salt from the salt-shaker, which I'm not even sure I needed but I wanted to be safe. To cut down on fat and calories, I used 93% lean beef and fat-free sour cream. I doubt I'd taste the difference between using 90% and reduced-fat and what I made. I calculated the calories and my version easily cut out about 100 calories per serving (although just one cup, not 5/4 cups, was more than enough) I'll definitely be making this again.